Best motherboard?

[Akula(old)]

Re: Best motherboard?

Thanks man but I'm not into tinkering anymore.... I can't afford to buy another high end MOBO or Vid card in the event something hapoenned so I'm looking to keep things stock and overclock only within the recommended ranges :)

I'm going to look at some Epox Boards and see how they compare with MSI. So far MSI is still sounding good as it seems the problems you had were a result of playing around with the BIOS. I don't mind changing BIOS settings but I really try to stay away from FSB and Voltage as I've had some costly experiences in the past form doing that. Sooooo..... I'll stick with stock lol. Thanks for your advice. If you have an opinion on EPOX boards I'd love to hear them.

Cheers and Thanks

[gsxr310]

Re: Best motherboard?

I just ordered the DFI SLI DR mobo. Couldn't stay away from it! I will give this board a try and post back w/ positive/negative feedback.

[Sir. MatDef]

Re: Best motherboard?

I just ordered the DFI SLI DR mobo. Couldn't stay away from it! I will give this board a try and post back w/ positive/negative feedback.

Good luck, you're gonna need it. :p

[imported_Wasp]

Re: Best motherboard?

Thanks man but I'm not into tinkering anymore.... I can't afford to buy another high end MOBO or Vid card in the event something hapoenned so I'm looking to keep things stock and overclock only within the recommended ranges :)

I'm going to look at some Epox Boards and see how they compare with MSI. So far MSI is still sounding good as it seems the problems you had were a result of playing around with the BIOS. I don't mind changing BIOS settings but I really try to stay away from FSB and Voltage as I've had some costly experiences in the past form doing that. Sooooo..... I'll stick with stock lol. Thanks for your advice. If you have an opinion on EPOX boards I'd love to hear them.

Cheers and Thanks

I have been building PC's for over 10 years now and I now my way around in a BIOS. Often you can eek out a bit more performance by testing some different memory timings and changing the CPU interface setting etc. This is not overclocking. BTW I pushed my ABIT NF7-S way beyond anything I've done with the MSI boards and it has never had a problem. I ran my 1.8Ghz Barton at 2.4Ghz with 450 FSB on that board. I got 21000 points in 3DMark01 with it and a 6800GT. 13000 points in 3DMark03.

As far as Epox goes I used to have an Epox board based on the VIA KT333 chipset. I really liked that board. It was fast and had a very good BIOS for overclocking. Lately though I have had some bad experiences with their boards. I built a pc for a friend with an EPOX Nforce2 Ultra 400 motherboard. Can't remember the exact model but it randomly froze during regular Windows use. I had to RMA it and the replacement board was exactly the same. At that point I just had to go with a different brand. My friend was getting pretty impatient. I have also read on Anandtech that their 9NDA+ something AMD 64 board has coldboot issues. This can usually be fixed by a BIOS update but I still question it.

MSI is a decent standard board and often they perform well. It's just not what I would choose first. The best MSI boards are definetly the Platinum versions. The only thing I can think of that speaks against the ASUS AN8 is that small pesky fan on it. They do have a version with a heat pipe. Pretty nifty.

[Akula(old)]

Re: Best motherboard?

Thanks soo much for that feedback... since I posted I did some more digging and have read wayy more pros than cons for the MSI Board. Think I'll stick with it. With regards to that EPOX NForce 2 board, my 8RDA+ has an NForce 2 Chipset and works great. Never really had any issues with it but after 3 years, its now time to upgrade.